Vanish
Page 6
When Friday finally comes, I can hardly concentrate at school. The minute classes end, I race home. I have checked and double-checked the bus schedule, but I pull it up again on the computer.
I don’t have to catch the shuttle bus until 6:45 PM. I’m so worried about missing it, or about the bus being delayed, that I catch the 5:45 bus instead. That means I have to wait a long time at the airport before Lily’s flight arrives. I try to peel my eyes away from the clocks, but I can’t. To add to everything, Lily’s flight is delayed by forty minutes.
By the time Lily walks through the gate, holding Blake’s hand, I am shaking with emotion. My heart inflates like a massive hot-air balloon as Lily turns and sees me. Blake smiles as Lily launches herself into my arms. She hugs me tightly and says my name over and over. I can’t say anything for a while.
Chapter Fifteen
I spend a lot of time with Blake and Lily after they get home. In talking with Blake, I learn that he knew Lily’s real address all along. She gave it to him months before she got confused by the fake address I taught her in class.
I also learn that Rachel sold off her valuables and emptied out her bank accounts. The police think she ransacked her own house before she took Lily away. All of this was to keep Blake from seeing their daughter again—and to get him convicted for the crime she committed—parental child abduction.
Now that Lily lives with him full time, Blake says he needs a steadier income than what he earns as a freelance photographer. His trip to Mexico to get Lily was expensive too. He’ll soon start working in a camera shop.
I get a new job too. Blake hires me to babysit Lily after school. Mom is beaming when I tell her. “So what are you going to do with the money you earn?” Mom asks.
The question catches me by surprise. I don’t want to look like a Runway Girl. But it might be nice to buy clothes that somebody else didn’t wear first. I might change my mind about that, but I would like to see for myself.
With Lily home safely, it feels like a happy ending. But she is sad, too. She often asks where her mommy is and when she is coming home. It’s hard for Lily to understand that nobody knows.
One day Lily tells me she is also sad that she missed the Halloween party the Kinderbuddies and the Big Buddies planned together.
“Was it fun, Simone?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t go.”
I had stayed by myself in Ms. Boyd’s class that day while Fiona and Aaron went with their Kinderbuddies.
“You missed it too?” Lily asks.
“Of course. I didn’t want to go without you.”
“Were you sad you missed it?”
I don’t know what to say. I was sad that day, but only because I was so worried about Lily.
I look at her and nod. “Yes, I was sad too.”
Then I get a great idea. “You know,” I say, “we could plan our own Halloween party.”
Lily stands up straighter. “But don’t we have to wait until next Halloween?”
“No.” I shake my head. “We can have our Halloween party whenever we want.”
Lily is starting to bounce. “Can we have it at the playground tomorrow?”
I laugh. “It might be better if we wait until the weekend. That will give us time to buy some candy and prizes.”
Lily’s eyes grow. “And can we wear costumes?”
“Yes.”
“And can we invite our friends?”
“We can definitely invite our friends.”
I smile. It’s a huge change for me to realize that I have real friends at school now. Aaron and Lily. And I’ve started to spend time with Fiona too. I don’t know why I ever thought she was dying to become a Runway Girl. I sure had that wrong.
We worked together through lunch a few times while we were decorating posters. Now we eat lunch together every day in the cafeteria. And every day after school, Fiona comes with me when I go pick up Lily. Then we stop at the grade-one class while Fiona picks up Olivia, her little sister. Lily was jealous of Olivia in the beginning, but now she likes her. The four of us spend hours at the playground together. Aaron and his brothers sometimes show up too. Reilly, Dexter and Carson are even wilder than Yuri.
That week, Lily and I shop for candy and toys. Blake paid me last week, and all of the leftover Halloween stuff is on sale in the stores.
On Friday, Lily and I bake cupcakes. I want to set them aside to cool, but Lily can’t wait to decorate them. A lot of the icing runs off the hot cupcakes, but Lily doesn’t seem to notice. She dumps tons of sprinkles on top and claps her hands with excitement when she has finished.
“Look, Simone. The cupcakes are beautiful!”
“Yes. Everyone will love them,” I say.
I have all of the party supplies waiting beside the door when Blake drops Lily off on Saturday. She giggles when I pretend I don’t recognize her in her costume. She is wearing a pair of black plastic-frame glasses. A long white shirt of her dad’s, unbuttoned, is over her fall jacket. The shirt reaches almost to the floor. A stuffed puppy is in one pocket, and a toy kitten is in the other. She is also wearing a tutu underneath her lab coat.
“Look! I am a ballerina–vet!” Lily twirls for me. She nearly trips on her veterinary coat. “Where is your costume?”
“You have to help me put it on,” I say.
I pull on Mom’s red winter coat. Lily helps me stick black construction-paper dots on it. She also adjusts my head band with the two antennae. I slip a set of wings onto my back.
“Do you know what I am?” I ask.
“You are a pretty ladybug!” she says as we head out the door.
We are the first to arrive at the playground. Soon a clown and a witch show up. Lily bounces up and down as she greets Fiona and Olivia.
Aaron arrives next, wearing a yellow hard hat, a fluorescent vest and a pair of work gloves.
“Hello, Construction Worker Man!” Lily laughs.
Loud voices ring out behind Aaron. Reilly, Dexter and Carson storm onto the playground next. They are dressed as a farmer, Batman and a hockey player. Within seconds, they are wrestling in the sand and trying to pull each other off the monkey bars.
Now that everyone is here, I give Lily, Olivia and the little boys empty goody bags. Aaron, Fiona and I take a package of candy to three different corners of the playground.
“You have to yell ‘trick or treat’ each time,” Lily says, “or the Big Buddies won’t give you any candy.”
Later, while the kids are eating their treats, Aaron, Fiona and I hide plastic spiders and jack-o’-lantern toys around the playground. When the younger kids have found them, we pull out the cupcakes. Everyone loves them.
It’s getting cold outside, and we are all starting to shiver. Still, Lily groans when Blake arrives to pick her up. “I’m not ready to go home yet.”
“We don’t have to go home right now,” he says. “First I need to take a picture of everyone.”
It takes a long time to get everyone arranged. Reilly, Dexter and Carson are too busy bumping into each other on the way down the slide to join us. Finally, Aaron coaxes his little brothers into the pirate ship with the rest of us.
“Smile,” Blake says.
“Cheese!”
“Did you take the picture yet?” Lily says.
“Yes.” Blake holds out his camera. “See, right there in the little window.”
I can’t resist looking in the little window too.
Sure enough, there we all are. Friends. Together.
Karen Spafford-Fitz studied English Language and Literature at Queen’s University. She next completed a degree in education and taught elementary and junior-high students for eight years. Two daughters and one move across the country later, Karen began creating stories for children and teenagers. Vanish is her second middle-grade novel. When Karen is not writing, she is often training for her next half-marathon.
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Karen Spafford-Fitz, Vanish